


It’s the Ghost of Drake Manor, Damian Wayne

by faerierequiem



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Demons, Gen, Ghosts, Halloween, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Slash, it's just that damian is the one doing the crushing, not because it's unrequited or anything, tim's too busy with ghost hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27359188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerierequiem/pseuds/faerierequiem
Summary: Damian didn’t have it in him to stand off to the side this year as Timothy drove himself mad with the ghost chase yet again, so he hatched a plan. If things went accordingly, Timothy would get his ghost and it would put an end to things once and for all.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Damian Wayne
Comments: 7
Kudos: 74





	It’s the Ghost of Drake Manor, Damian Wayne

**Author's Note:**

> i'm bummed that i didn't get around to posting this up on halloween like i had been planning to, but stuff got in the way and things probably wouldn't have worked out anyways since this fic took longer than i had planned to finish it. little more than a week, but longer than i thought. still, this fic came to me so easily. i had a blast writing it and i'm proud of it overall. please enjoy!!
> 
> 🦇👻🦇🎃🦇

By the time the clock struck twelve, Damian had had a fulfilling Halloween night. Superman flew him over to Smallville (something that he didn’t hate quite as much as he used to before), so that he could go trick-or-treating with Jon. Stepping into his friend’s bedroom in his Robin suit had been worth the shocked expression that had fallen over Jon’s face before Damian had explained in amusement that it wasn’t going to be his costume (Jon had talked his ear off that wearing his Robin suit was cheating on a previous Halloween. Damian didn’t want to go through that again).

The plan was to patrol Gotham after he trick-or-treated with Jon, so Damian had figured it’d save time to bring his Robin suit along with him and change at the farmhouse before Superman flew him back, but he brought along his Halloween costume with him in a small backpack. It was a Frankenstein’s monster costume that came with a plastic mask, bolts to strap against his neck using a clear string, and the outfit itself. Damian had recently read Mary Shelley’s famous book and had found himself surprisingly touched by the story of Frankenstein’s monster. It had felt right to be him for Halloween.

Jon, on the other hand, was dressed in a ridiculous white sheet with a bunch of holes cut into it that Damian had been less than impressed by. It wasn’t like Jon to put so little effort into a Halloween costume. Jon claimed that it was from a movie that he had had Damian watch before. Damian could vaguely remember it. Something about a “great pumpkin” and a dog dressed as a War World II pilot.

They trick-or-treated for almost an hour. By the time they were done, Damian’s bag of candy was noticeably heavy in his hands, he had gotten tired of Jon’s arbitrary rock jokes, and he didn’t doubt that they had rung the doorbell of every house in Smallville within reasonable walking distance.

Afterwards, he’d changed back into his Robin suit, stuffed his candy and costume back into his bag, and said farewell to Jon before he was flown back to Gotham via Superman, who dropped Damian off on top of a building with a wave and a “Happy Halloween, Robin.” Damian had patrolled Gotham for a few hours. Father was off on a business trip, so it was him, Cassandra, and Timothy keeping watch over the city. Damian had volunteered to take care of things on Halloween night. Sometimes Richard dropped by, but he was busy in Bludhaven and couldn’t come around often, so Damian patrolled alone. It wasn’t an eventful night, more people were out celebrating the holiday rather than out committing crimes, so Damian was able to call it a night earlier than he expected, finding himself back at the manor shortly after the end of Halloween and twelve minutes into November first.

Alfred had turned in for the night, but Cassandra was back from the Halloween party Stephanie had invited her to and was watching a black-and-white TV show in the media room.

It didn’t escape his attention that she was alone.

With a sigh that was probably louder than it should have been, Damian dropped his backpack onto the couch and sat down beside her. “Is he still over there?”

Cassandra nodded.

The thought of Timothy by himself in the neighboring manor irritated Damian, but concern outweighed that irritation. He would prefer it if he didn’t care, but unfortunately, that was not the reality of things. Damian had noticed how exhausted Timothy had looked at lunch today, the bags underneath his eyes more pronounced than usual, and when the two of them had been patrolling the other night, Timothy’s mind had been so occupied that Damian had had to pull him out of the way of a bullet. A rare phantom warmth lingered on his hand from where he had touched Timothy, but that wasn’t worth Timothy almost getting fatally wounded.

_Stupid Drake._

The commercials came on and Cassandra turned to him, her head tilted slightly to the side. “Ghost time?”

Damian nodded.

It was time to put an end to Timothy’s outrageous ghost hunting.

* * *

Timothy had never told Damian the story himself (Damian didn’t doubt that it was because Timothy believed that Damian would ridicule him for it and he was partly right about that), but Damian had heard enough from Father, Richard, Alfred, and even Connor to piece things together.

Story was that when Timothy was still living in the manor he had grown up in, he had continuously seen what looked like a ghost walking through the halls every Halloween night. His family had had a maid employed at the manor, but she didn’t work overnight and his parents had oftentimes been abroad, so it had only been Timothy in the house and that had narrowed the list of suspects down to a puzzling mystery. Of course, since it was Timothy, his curiosity had outweighed his fear and he had tried relentlessly to find out the truth behind this phantom figure who appeared only once a year. The more he failed the more obsessed he became. He firmly believed that there was someone haunting the Drake manor.

Damian had found this madman Timothy amusing in previous years, but this year had had other plans in store. It had started on Christmas after he opened Timothy’s present for him and saw the tickets to a Caravaggio exhibit that was opening in Madrid. Damian hadn’t even known that Timothy was aware of him being a fan of Caravaggio’s work and he had stared at the tickets in his hands, not bothering to conceal his shock behind a mask of neutrality. It had earned him a chuckle from Timothy.

“I’ll pay for the plane tickets,” Timothy said. “Just let me know when you want to go.”

Damian had registered the words, looked down at the two tickets in his hand, and jumped to a conclusion that had surprised him even more. “Are you going with me?”

Timothy raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d want to go with Bruce or Dick.”

 _Of course._ With an embarrassed start, Damian had recomposed himself and nodded. “Yes, I would prefer that.”

Timothy rolled his eyes, but had left it at that before turning to open his own presents while Damian had continued to sit there at a loss, wondering if it was true that he wouldn’t want to go with Timothy.

He had ended up going with Father and that should’ve been that, but it only got worse from there. After Alfred had received some rare jazz records and Jason got some much needed tech improvements to his helmet, Damian noticed that those tickets hadn’t been a special case; Timothy had a talent for gift giving. It was because he paid attention (ironically something Damian only noticed now that he himself was paying attention). Timothy was good at listening, at remembering, at standing off to the side and observing those around him, which was something Damian had always known to some degree, but he had never fully given Timothy credit for it.

He realized that there were a lot of things he hadn’t fully given Timothy credit for: the way he was fully grounded in an interaction despite the various states of sleepiness he was perpetually in, the way he committed himself to completing a task once it was given to him or he had promised to handle it, the way he worked to improve himself once he noticed he was lacking in something or it was pointed out to him, the way he got so focused that nothing could break him out of his concentration unless he did it himself… The list could go on and on and on.

And this wasn’t even including how Timothy let out small quiet laughs when he thought no one was looking. Or how he had an endearing habit of rubbing his thumb against his palm when he was anxious. Or how he would tuck a lock of hair behind his ear when he was leaning over his laptop. If Timothy Drake were a painting in an art museum, Damian could spend the entire day gazing at him. (And then come back the next day to look some more.) He wouldn’t get bored. He would stand there with awed white noise in his head and something soft growing in his chest. 

It was awful.

He used to not be able to stand the ground that Timothy walked on. Now he constantly worshipped it.

Needless to say, Damian didn’t have it in him to stand off to the side this year as Timothy drove himself mad with this ghost chase yet again. Seeing Timothy almost get shot had been the last straw. Damian had not been able to sleep that night, overwhelmed by what-ifs that had plagued his mind and growing more resolute that he had to do something, so he had hatched a plan with Cassandra. Timothy would get a ghost—even if the ghost was Cassandra creeping around the corners of the halls and leaving cryptic answers on the walls with black paint. If things went according to plan, Timothy would be none the wiser and it would put a firm end to things.

* * *

After two minutes of standing at the front door and knocking occasionally to no avail, Damian broke into the Drake manor. It was different being inside at night. The modern design of the house, which had been so tacky in the daylight when he had last came here with Cassandra to sort out the plan, was now shrouded in shadows. Timothy had not bothered to leave any lights on, which Damian should have expected. Timothy probably thought the lights would decrease the chances of a ghost sighting or whatever nonsensical reasoning he was basing his logic on.

Damian found himself wishing for a flashlight and a map of the manor as he started searching for Timothy. He had only bothered to familiarize himself with the east end of the manor and although the Drake manor was nowhere near as big as the Wayne manor, it might as well have been. His unfamiliarity with the layout of the place amplified its size.

He spent about ten minutes looking around the first floor for Timothy before Damian realized it was pointless to let the silence settle. It wasn’t as if he needed the element of surprise on his side. He called out Timothy’s name as he walked, asking it in question at first as he looked into rooms before it turned to outright shouts as he stopped bothering to check into every nook and cranny he passed. Besides, as much as he loathed to admit it, Timothy would be less suspicious of him if he was being obnoxious as opposed to if he was being considerate.

He couldn’t help but get slightly startled when a voice broke through the dark from above him. “Damian? What are you doing here?” Timothy stood at the top of the grand staircase and was peering over the banister at him.

Damian calmed his expression and straightened his posture. He tried to ignore his quickening heartbeat. “I thought it would be obvious from me calling your name that what I was doing was looking for you.”

“Why?” Worry grew on Timothy’s face, visible even in the dimness. “Did something happen? I knew that me or Cass should’ve joined you—”

“Nothing happened.” Damian didn’t have to feign a reaction from how the comment irked him. “I could handle it myself.”

“Oh.” It was harder to make out Timothy’s expression this time. “As long as everything’s fine. I guess you wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the case.”

Damian blushed. He was immediately thankful that the doubled cover of the darkness and his skin complexion made it difficult for Timothy to notice. A year ago he would’ve been fixated on Timothy’s suggestion that he needed a partner when he was out on patrol, but now he caught the fact that Timothy said it out of concern, that someone should be there for Damian in case he got hurt or something went wrong, and the soft feeling was returning to his chest.

“Everything’s fine,” he said.

Timothy nodded. “Okay.”

Damian was starting to feel like a fool, staring up at Timothy like this with a blush on his face. He could sit down and draw out the Romeo and Juliet fantasy some other time. He made his way up the stairs; Timothy’s confusion over his being there became clearer the closer he got.

“Have you made any progress on your ghost hunt?” He schooled his expression into genuine curiosity, so that Timothy wouldn’t think he was mocking him, but then again, Timothy would think Damian was mocking him regardless of what expression he had on his face. He disliked it more and more that Timothy felt the need to be on his toes around him.

This was confirmed by the self-consciousness that flickered through Timothy, causing his shoulders to tense, a corner of his mouth to turn downwards, and his eye contact to falter. All of this happened in a quick second, but that was more than long enough for Damian.

“I’m not here to laugh at you, Drake.”

“Did Dick tell you?”

It wasn’t difficult to tell when Timothy was angry, because he got an expression on his face that tried very hard not to show it, which oftentimes backfired on him and made his face look steely instead; however, that was absent from his face at the moment. If anything, he looked more resigned than ready to throw around any blame.

Regardless, Damian erred on the side of caution. “Richard isn’t the only one on the list of people who knows.”

“Last time I checked that list didn’t include you,” Timothy said and this sounded like it could be the beginning of an argument.

Damian bit back the retort that easily readied itself on his tongue, aware that it would not do him any favors. His natural instinct was to snap at Timothy that he made it obvious that he was always off doing something on Halloween, so of course Damian would have asked for answers. In that scenario, he would’ve walked up the last step to get a height advantage over Timothy as he said these things, but he remained where he was. That wasn’t the path he wanted this night to take. It was always so easy for them to end up at each other’s throats and harder not to.

Maybe he should’ve been the ghost. Cassandra would not have this issue. She wouldn’t have had any issues at all. Timothy would’ve taken it in stride that she knew.

Damian almost considered making his leave and meeting up with her to revise their plan, but that felt like the easy way out. He could be at peace with Timothy Drake. He just needed to figure out how, but as he tried to think up a possible course of action to take that wouldn’t result in the two of them shouting at each other, time continued to pass and Timothy looked more and more like he was ready to walk away.

They were startled by the sound of a thump from downstairs.

“Did you come here with someone else?” Timothy asked.

Damian shook his head as his thoughts jumped to Cassandra. He felt a mix of emotions: relief that her timing had worked out well for him and dissatisfaction that he needed her to help him out of this situation. He tried to ignore how he probably would have failed otherwise. It shouldn’t take so much effort to get on Timothy’s good side—let alone think of a way to do so—but that was something he sorely needed practice in, a glaring fault that stabbed at his ego. Damian made a note to himself to work on improving that. His relationship with Timothy was never going to change if these problems persisted.

“Do you think someone followed you?”

“No one followed me here.” There was more snappiness in Damian’s voice than there should’ve been. He took a breath to steady himself. First thing he needed to do was not let his temper control his reactions towards Timothy. He could do that. If he wanted Timothy to stop being so defensive around him, then he should stop being so defensive around Timothy. He could also do that.

Timothy took off down the stairs, so suddenly that it took Damian a second to follow after him. Their footsteps echoed in the open space. Damian made sure to keep his movements light, careful not to press his entire weight onto the stairs, but the silence of the manor made things sound louder than they should’ve been. It also didn’t help that the place was old and the wood creaked underneath his shoes. If this had been a mission, he would’ve opted to slide down the banister instead, but Timothy didn’t seem to care that they made noise, so he refrained from doing so.

He regretted that decision as soon as they reached the bottom of the staircase and Timothy turned to walk to the west side of the manor.

Damian cursed himself for not thinking ahead. He should’ve put himself in the lead. “What are you doing?”

“The sound came from over there,” Timothy said, giving Damian a look that added that that should’ve been obvious.

“No.” Damian pointed towards the east side. “It came from over there.”

Timothy shook his head. “I don’t have time to debate this with you, Damian. If you want to check over there, then go ahead, but I’m going this way.” With that, he started off towards the west.

Quickly, Damian sorted through the facts. Timothy was right that the sound had come from the western portion of the manor and Damian knew that Cassandra had been the cause of it, so it was possible that something had come up that had made Cassandra revise the plan. He thought about checking his phone to see if she had sent him a text message about it, but the distance between him and Timothy was increasing fast, so he trusted that Cassandra had a reason for changing locations and hurried to catch up with Timothy. The only downside was that now Damian wouldn’t know which walls the messages were painted on.

Timothy looked over his shoulder at Damian as he fell into step behind him. “You don’t have to tag along, Damian. I know you probably think this is a waste of time.”

“Tt. Don’t put words in my mouth, Drake.”

Timothy let out what sounded half like a huff and half like a snort, but he dropped the subject.

They continued on in silence. This part of the manor looked similar to what Damian had familiarized himself with, but it wasn’t hard to see why when there was nothing but hallways and rooms with closed doors, same as in the eastern portion. There were moments where Damian could trick himself into thinking that they were walking through the Wayne manor before this manor’s emptiness showed itself. It was obvious that it had been abandoned and that there weren’t people living here anymore. He supposed he could understand why Timothy thought there was a ghost wandering through this place.

“How was your Halloween?”

The question broke through the stillness, spreading out in gentle ripples that Damian couldn’t help but stare at in surprise. That Timothy had been curious enough about his night to ask had something warm wrapping around him.

He didn’t answer until he was sure he could keep his voice even. “It was fun.”

“That’s good.”

Damian smiled to himself, thought about his bag of candy, and was about to offer some of it to Timothy when they got back home, but then Timothy spoke again. “I feel bad that you did the patrol tonight. You should’ve been able to get the full night off. It’s—”

“I willingly volunteered.” Part of Damian was pleased that Timothy was concerned about that, but for the most part, he didn’t want Timothy to feel bad. Especially not over something Damian hadn’t even thought twice about. “Besides, it gave me an excuse to not have to trick-or-treat with Jon any longer than I needed to.”

“You don’t like trick-or-treating with Jon?”

“It’s not that,” Damian said. “It’s that Jon can trick-or-treat for hours when the most that I want to do is one—and even then, an hour is me being generous.”

“Well then, I’m happy to hear that things worked out for you.” Timothy slowed to fall into step beside him and smiled. 

Damian almost tripped over his own feet.

They entered what appeared to be a dining room if the lone table in the middle was anything to go by. The curtains were drawn across the windows and there were no chairs, but the table must have been able to seat at least eight people when it was in use. Damian tried to imagine a little Timothy sitting at the table with his parents to eat dinner, but based on what he knew about Timothy’s childhood, all he could imagine was Timothy sitting by himself, a meal for one in front of him. His jaw tightened at the idea.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?” He asked.

Timothy looked up from where he stood at one end of the table, an eyebrow raised. “I thought it was obvious.”

 _Typical Drake_. Damian couldn’t help but think that fondly. It was a good thing that Timothy was not a mindreader (even if it would be useful in some cases). He walked up to stand at the other end of the table and ran his finger across the dusty surface. “What does this apparition look like?” That was not a detail he had learned from Father and the others.

It was unfortunate for Timothy that the lack of light and his pale skin didn’t make it difficult to tell that his cheeks were turning red. He turned his face down, probably aware of that fact and attempting to hide it. Damian waited for him to answer, but another moment passed without one. He didn’t doubt that Timothy hesitated to tell him because he was embarrassed and believed that Damian would laugh at him. Timothy had made it abundantly clear that that was how he thought Damian would react.

Damian let out a sigh. “I used to see something when I was a kid.”

That caught Timothy’s attention. He looked up and met Damian’s eyes, his own eyes slightly wide with interest. “A ghost?”

Damian shrugged. “I don’t know what it was. Mother told me the thing was a shaitan and would have me recite prayers with her to keep it away, but I continued to see it.”

“What did it look like?” Timothy asked, a sheepish expression following shortly afterwards, but neither of them commented on the hypocrisy of him asking Damian a question that he himself hadn’t answered.

“I misspoke,” Damian said. “I never saw it. The thing would show up at night as I fell asleep, would stand by the side of my bed, and it was as if my eyelids were being weighed down because I could not open them, but I could feel it there. I could feel it watching me, so it must have had eyes. Maybe I was too tired and my mind was projecting imagined beings into reality, but that’s what I told myself to try and make it not real. This thing had a presence that I could recognize specifically as _it_ , something heavy. I don’t quite know how to describe it. Eventually though, it stopped appearing. I have not felt it around me since I was nine or ten.”

A thoughtful look had come over Timothy’s face. He didn’t speak for a moment and then another moment that stretched into a third. Despite himself, Damian felt a twinge of nervousness. He knew that Timothy was taking the time to process the information, but Damian had never told anyone about it before. Hadn’t thought that it was worth bringing up. He’d almost debated telling the Titans one time, but that would have been under the guise of telling scary stories and even then Damian hadn’t spoken of it.

He suddenly understood why Timothy hesitated to tell him about his ghost.

“It’s kinda stereotypical, but the ghost glows,” Timothy said, his voice low and almost whispered as if he hadn’t wanted to startle Damian. “Not overwhelmingly, but enough to light up its surroundings with this white glow. Sometimes the glow looks tinged with a pale blue, but most of the time, it’s white in color. That’s really all I’ve seen of it. It has a human figure, but it’s like the glow blends together its facial features and what it’s wearing, so I can’t make out the details and can only see the big picture.”

He was tapping his fingers on the table and paused for the duration of two taps before continuing. “I don’t think it’s malicious. I’ve never felt scared of it, but it… It feels lonely. I think maybe it has unfinished business and that’s why it’s still here.”

“Has anyone died here?” Damian asked. It was a morbid question, but knowing that might help him figure out something to get Cassandra to write or do in order to convince Timothy that this ghost had passed on.

Timothy shook his head. “I’ve looked extensively into that, but the most that’s happened is a gardener who fainted from heat stroke and had to be taken to the hospital sometime during the mid-twentieth century. He lived about forty more years after that incident.”

Dead end there. Damian thought of another angle that he could view this from. “Is there an area of this manor that it tends to appear in?”

“Upstairs, but I haven't been having any luck with sightings, so I—” Timothy stopped, head whipping towards the direction of the hallway they had entered from. “Did you hear that?”

Damian had not heard anything.

Timothy was out of the room before he could respond.

Damian considered following after him, but this new goose chase would only be pointless and prolong how long they were all going to be here. And he was sorely overdue in regards to checking in with Cassandra. He needed updates on this new plan of hers. Damian leaned a hip against the dining table as he took out his phone and opened to his text messages. Sure enough, there was a single text from Cassandra that had been sent to him nearly nine minutes ago. He clicked on it to find the longest message he had ever gotten from her.

_Sorry Damian. Waited forty minutes in the designated area but got a call from Barbara about a fire in the financial district. I have gone to help. Wrote some messages on the walls we marked. Take care of Tim._ 👻

Damian reread the message again, listing off each thing Cassandra had mentioned with a mental bullet point, and read it for a third time to completely process it. He didn’t mind that she had left; after all, a fire was rightfully a more pressing manner than trying to fool Timothy Drake into thinking there was a ghost. Plus, Cassandra had taken the time to make sure the plan could still somehow work without her before she had left, which Damian appreciated, but there was one thing that had his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

If Cassandra had been in the eastern end of the manor the entire time, then what had been the cause of the thump that he and Timothy had heard earlier?

And what about the sound that had had Timothy running out of the room only a mere minute ago?

He got the sudden discomforting feeling as if the room was watching him.

Damian closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and loosened the grip that he had around his phone. He was not going to let all this talk of supernatural beings mess with him. There was a logical explanation for these occurrences. This manor was old. The stairs creaked. There was dust on the table. It was absolutely possible that a part of the house had given away due to age and—

Every muscle in his body tensed as a tapping sound registered in his ears.

A second later, Damian cursed himself and moved into action. All his training had taught him better than to waste time like that. Time was important, could give him an advantage, and he had faced far worse things in his life than some arbitrary sound in some arbitrary manor. He was more than capable in dealing with whatever was going on.

The tapping was happening on glass, which made things simple. Damian carefully walked towards the windows until he neared the one that was being tapped on. The sound was light and occurred at random intervals, similar to something that he had heard before, but he pushed the familiarity from his mind. It would be useless to stand about and try to remember. The curtains were thick, making it impossible for him to see any silhouettes, and he grabbed onto one side, readying himself to fight if he needed to, before he pulled back the drapery.

There was a tree, the wind causing its branches to shift in the air and tap against the window as they moved.

Damian felt like a fool. That explained why the sound had been familiar. There was a tree that did the same thing back at home. Its branches would knock lightly against the window in the kitchen whenever he assisted Alfred with cooking, a pleasant background noise to the comfortable silence that settled as he chopped up vegetables and Alfred tended to the stirring of a pot.

He leaned against the wall with a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. This entire affair was beginning to tire him out. He didn’t care anymore about pulling through with a plan that no longer felt worth the effort. All he wanted to do now was find Timothy and drag him back to a manor that was actually lived in. Timothy would most definitely be angry at him, but that didn’t bother Damian. He was used to Timothy being angry with him. And if Timothy wanted to be angry about this, then so be it.

Damian left the dining room, but paused once he had stepped out into the hallway. He glanced in both directions and there was nothing but darkness.

“Drake?” He faltered as soon as the word left his mouth, caught off guard by how loud his voice sounded in this stillness, and frustration bit at him. He was being stupid yet again. This was nothing to get hung up over. He made his next shout even louder on purpose and tried to ignore how pointlessly spiteful that was. “Drake!”

There was no response.

Damian scowled and started in the direction that he hadn’t walked earlier. Why he had ever found Timothy’s one track mind admirable was beyond him. It only had its advantages at select times. Other than that, Timothy’s tendency to focus his attention on one thing weighed heavy with cons. It was a hindrance to himself and a frustration to others. Maybe the only reason why Damian liked it was because it allowed for him to sneak glances at Timothy’s dumb face without him realizing, but that certainly wasn’t coming in handy at the moment.

“Damn you, Drake! You better not be ignoring me!”

Yet again there was no response.

Damian let out one more yell, elongating “Drake” as long as possible until he was even annoyed with himself. And more than annoyed with Timothy for causing him to resort to such childish measures. Unsurprisingly, this last effort was met with nothing. Damian let out an aggravated exhale and continued walking down the hall. He should’ve been used to such long halls from living in a manor himself, but there was something about the hallways of this manor that felt particularly endless. He got the feeling that he could walk for days down this darkness and would not reach an end.

Periodically, he would stop to look into a room with an opened door, but they were all empty. Hopefully Timothy hadn’t gone into one of them and closed the door behind himself. Damian didn’t need more complications. This whole entire thing had turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. He shouldn’t have bothered at all.

Damian came to a stop, leaned against the wall and tried to catch his bearings. If he could take a moment and think through this, maybe he could come up with—

He flinched at a noise that reverberated from down the hallway.

Hope flared in his chest for a brief moment, hope that it was Timothy, but when Damian looked up, he saw nothing but the damned darkness. Something like despair devoured the hope. Damian couldn’t ignore how much the noise had sounded like bones fracturing, comforting because it reminded him of Jason’s habitual knuckle cracking (which Damian vowed to no longer make any more comments about if he heard it again), but all the more unsettling because it was a noise that had no place in a shadowy empty hallway.

A few years ago, he had gone with Colin to a haunted house for the first and last time. The experience had been irritating rather than scary; each bloodthirsty monster that had shown up increasingly became an annoyance that prolonged an experience Damian wanted to get over and done with. He hadn’t been scared, because he knew that nothing in that place had been real, only people in costumes that he could incapacitate in a multitude of ways.

That was not the case right now.

Cautiously, in the most timid voice Damian had ever heard from himself, he asked into the hall, “Timothy?”

The silence that answered was torturous.

He had a brief thought that Timothy had figured out his reason for being here and had decided to retaliate by pulling the rug out from underneath his feet, but the idea burnt into ashes in a second. Timothy was not cruel enough to do that. Not because it was something he wouldn’t do, but because Damian knew that Timothy would’ve given up as soon as he heard the way Damian had called out his name. He would’ve stepped out from wherever he was. He would’ve been walking up to Damian with concern on his face, probably caught off guard as well over how Damian hadn’t referred to him by his last name for once.

Damian swallowed past a lump in his throat. He could tell that he was making himself small, knees weak and back slumped forward and his shoulders up to his ears, but all he could do was grip tightly at his jacket. That discomforting feeling that he was being watched had returned. It was as if there were eyes all over the walls of the hallway, blinking out in the open or hidden in the corners, and Damian thought about how he had lied to Timothy.

He _had_ seen the thing that had shown up at his bedside as a child. He saw it the last time he ever felt the thing’s presence nearby. He had woken up sometime during the night, opened his eyes, and caught sight of a figure standing still at the foot of his bed. The thing had been tall and humanoid. He wasn’t sure if he’d been unable to see what its face looked like because it had been dark or because it was a shadow, but he knew the thing had been watching him—even if he hadn’t been able to see its eyes, similar to how he had been able to tell that it watched him when his eyes were closed. He remembered the terrifying helplessness that had taken over the passivity and sleepiness. His limbs had been frozen in place and with a sinking feeling in his gut, he had known he wouldn’t be able to do anything if the thing… He had not wanted to think about what it could do to him in his immobile state.

The ordeal could have lasted a few minutes or it could have lasted for hours. Time had seemed to drag, slow and sluggish, and Damian could remember how it had gone on and on. He doesn’t remember how things had ended, only that he had woken up in the morning by himself, and had dreaded going back to sleep that entire day, but the thing hadn’t showed up again. Since then, he had done enough research to know that he had probably been experiencing some form of sleep paralysis, but it wasn’t enough to dissipate his fear that one day the thing would show up again and he would be proven otherwise.

Damian sunk to the floor, buried his face between his knees, and tried very hard not to feel like he was ten-years-old again.

Somehow he managed to remember the presence of his phone tucked into his jacket pocket. It took a second for Damian to pull it out and speed-dial Timothy’s number. He pressed the phone to his ear, willed Timothy to pick up, and felt his intestines knot more and more as the ringing tone lasted without interruption. It finally ended in Timothy’s voicemail, which Damian listened to because at least he would be able to hear Timothy’s voice in some capacity, but once it was over, Damian felt like a desperate fool. He cursed Timothy for not answering his goddamn phone before he hung up, but the anger had little bite.

To his horror, tears pricked at his eyes.

Damian stood up. He had had enough. Timothy could continue his stupid ghost hunt by himself. Damian was going back home, gorging on a bunch of chocolates, and cuddling up with Titus and/or Alfred the Cat in front of the TV. He was not going to waste this night anymore than he already had.

But he hesitated. Something ate at his resolve. Something that he recognized as distress, misplaced as it probably was, but what if something had happened to Timothy? Damian hadn’t called Timothy’s phone a lot throughout the years, but the couple of times that he had, Damian couldn’t recall a single time when Timothy hadn’t picked up. It was one of the ways that he was reliable, so Damian couldn’t blame himself for getting uneasy that the one time Timothy didn’t answer his phone, Damian knew he was off somewhere in a mansion that was capable of scaring even _him_ , Damian al Ghul Wayne. He couldn’t leave without knowing that Timothy was safe.

He debated calling Timothy again, but a sound brought everything in him to a halt. It was that sound again. The sound of breaking bones, echoing from the end of the hall, and Damian’s eyes widened as something registered in his peripheral vision. He sucked in a breath, told himself that he had seen wrong, but when he forced himself to look in the direction of the sound, he saw it, faint but a sharper shade of black than the surrounding darkness, so that he could make out a tall humanoid figure.

No.

Damian backed up against the wall with more force than he intended, the impact almost knocking the breath out of him. “T-T-Timothy?” The question was wrong before it left his mouth. An unseen pair of eyes settled on him and Damian wished that he hadn’t spoken at all. He knew it wasn’t Timothy. It… It was… Fuck, he should’ve known better. He should’ve been quiet and ran.

Damian grabbed the knob of the nearest door to him and yanked it open. He ran inside, slammed the door closed behind him, and found himself in a closet. Not a room with windows to escape through. Damian’s throat tightened.

_No, no, no, no, no, no, no._

His luck was cursed. Damian fell to his knees, stared at the ground and felt his breathing quicken. He told himself to run outside, run into another room, run through a window, and run until he was far away, but he didn’t want to go back out into the hallway and his legs felt frozen. Alarmed, he tightened his hands into fists, shook his head, gritted his teeth, anything to assure himself that he was in control of his body. He choked back a sob, unsure if it was from relief, but sure that it was from something else.

The sound—the awful sound—neared closer. He could hear it through the door as it moved down the hall and visualized the bones of a rib cage cracking. One cracked rib. Two cracked ribs. Three cracked ribs. Four cracked ribs. He tried very hard not to think about what would happen when it got to the twelfth.

“Damian?”

 _Timothy_.

Damian ran on autopilot as he reached up to open the door and crawled into the hallway, but he stopped once he was out of the closet. There was no sign of Timothy in the hallway. There was nothing in the hallway. He saw nothing, heard nothing, and inhaled nothing. The air was suffocating and he was having difficulty breathing. Damian gasped in a lungful of air.

For a split second, there was a dark figure further down the hallway.

He barely heard the sound of approaching footsteps as the figure became Timothy and not… Not…

Damian burst into tears.

“Damian!” There was an arm around his shoulder. “Oh my god, are you alright?”

The crying wouldn’t stop. Damian avoided meeting Timothy’s eyes and, after a moment of contemplation before he disregarded it completely, buried his face against Timothy’s chest. His stupid, rotten, infuriating chest that was also warm and pleasant and smelled of some sweet cologne that Damian could hear himself loudly breathe in. He focused on the smell as he tried to calm himself down. He wasn’t hyperventilating anymore, but the sniffling kept happening and the tears kept falling. It was beyond humiliating. It wasn’t even worth being able to experience this kind of intimate proximity with Timothy—until Timothy pulled him closer into an embrace that had his breath stuttering for an entirely new reason.

Maybe this was worth the humiliation.

“What happened?”

Damian’s chin quivered as the tears resurged. He didn’t want to answer, but the words left his mouth regardless. “I thought you were…”

Silence stretched between them, the only movement was Damian pulling back to wipe away the tears and Timothy letting him. Damian’s cheeks burned. He might as well have been ten-years-old again based on the way he was acting. He had been in a similar situation with Mother back then, but that was excusable. This current occurrence with a boy four years his senior who he admired more than his favorite pieces of art, on the other hand, was not. It shouldn’t even be happening.

Finally, Timothy prompted in a soft voice, “Who did you think I was?”

Damian sniffed, louder than he meant to, but they didn’t have tissues and he didn’t want to get snot on Timothy’s shirt. He tucked his face back against Timothy’s chest and closed his eyes, tried to lose himself in the comfort of Timothy’s arms around him and to forget the ominous figure that had haunted his life, but he couldn’t ignore the effect of its reappearance on him. It did not bode well for him.

“A harbinger of death,” he whispered. “The thing from my childhood. It’s biding its time.”

“Biding its time for what?”

Damian’s breath caught in his throat. The last of the floodgates opened. In the blink of an eye, he was crying uncontrollably and if it shocked him, he could only fathom how shocked Timothy must’ve been. One of Timothy’s hands was on his back, patting him between the shoulder blades, and Damian finally allowed himself to wrap his arms around Timothy’s waist, gripping his fingers tightly into the fabric of his shirt. He was getting tired of leaning over to press his face against Timothy’s chest, but he refused to look up, didn’t want to look anywhere outside the confines of Timothy’s arms.

“I think it shows up at times when I might die, so that if I do, it can collect my life.” Damian’s voice broke around a sob as something dawned on him. “I would’ve died without being able to tell you that I think you’re beautiful.”

Damian knew that was the wrong thing to muse out loud the moment he uttered the words. Timothy’s hand had come to a standstill on his back and Damian felt how Timothy had immediately stiffened in response. He pulled away from Timothy as quickly as possible, holding him at arm’s length and analyzing Timothy’s face for a reaction. It wasn’t hard given how Timothy didn’t bother to keep his expression under wraps. His eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly opened, the surprise visible over any other thing he could’ve been feeling.

Damian let go of Timothy to wipe his cheeks dry. Blood roared in his ears. Frantically, he tried to think of what to do, but his mind was a mess, so he resorted to old habits. He scowled. “I could have died because of this pointless ghost chase of yours.”

Timothy narrowed his eyes. “What?”

Damian pulled out of Timothy’s hold and missed it the second he did. “You think I came here because I wanted to have a laugh at your expense, but I can do that anytime and anywhere else. It did not have to be here. _I_ didn’t have to be here! I would much rather be enjoying my time back at home, not having to deal with any of this, but I notice things—”

“Damian.”

“Let me finish, Drake! I notice your obsession with this ghost and I notice when that obsession gets you in danger. You nearly got shot in the _chest_ last week because you were distracted with thoughts about it. Did you think that nobody was going to notice? You should know better! And then you have the nerve to leave me alone in this place and when I call you, you don’t even answer your phone. Stop it with this ghost nonsense! It’s doing no one any good. Especially you.”

“Are you done?” Timothy asked.

Damian glared at him. He could feel something heating up in him. Anger most likely, boiling in his chest and about to explode, but then Timothy reached out to turn his head, so that he was looking over his shoulder and everything else disappeared other than the sight he saw down the hallway. The thing. The harbinger. The death collector. Whatever it was, the figure stood, tall and still, as a pale blue light glowed from behind it. Damian watched as the glow got brighter and brighter until it eventually obscured the figure from sight completely, as if the light was devouring it, and then there was only a star that got smaller and smaller until it was a pinprick of light.

Damian blinked. It was gone. A sense of tranquility had taken its place, reassuring and potent, almost as if to let him know that he didn’t need to be scared anymore.

There was no doubt in his mind. That had been Timothy’s ghost. He had the undeniable understanding that up until this point he had been humoring the idea of a ghost, but he hadn’t actually believed that Timothy’s ghost existed until he saw it, which was more unfair coming from him than it would have been from anyone else.

Another part of Damian couldn’t help but be bitter that of course, the ghost would appear when he was about to question the legitimacy of its existence. At least Timothy wasn’t looking smug about it. Damian would’ve had to punch him if he were.

* * *

There were only the sounds of leaves rustling in the autumn wind and their quiet footfalls as they walked back to the Wayne manor. The moon was in the waxing gibbous phase, nearly a full moon, but not quite, giving off the only illumination in the night. Things were almost peaceful.

But then Timothy had to ruin it.

“I think you’re beautiful, too.”

Damian blushed. His hands squeezed into fists inside the pockets of his jacket. “Shut up, Drake.”

_He thinks I’m beautiful. He thinks I’m beautiful. He thinks I’m beautiful._

Timothy was silent. Then, he let out a sigh. “I’m sorry for worrying you,” he said. “And I’m sorry for leaving you by yourself.”

Damian would rather not have to think about all the things Timothy felt he had to apologize for. He probably blamed himself for the embarrassing crying session Damian had had. His face heated up even more. “Don’t be sorry.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“Tt. Make it up to me by never going back there to look for your ghost.”

“Don’t worry.” Timothy nudged his shoulder against Damian’s arm. “That was the last time.”

Damian met Timothy’s eyes in surprise. “Really?”

“Really.” Timothy gave him a small smile. “I don’t think the ghost is lonely anymore.”

Damian nudged Timothy back with an elbow, a careful smile on his own face.

**Author's Note:**

> "well, it was nice to know that damian's plan had worked out somehow." this was supposed to be the last line of the fic, but it feel extraneous so I took it out. i realize i have a thing for writing conclusions to fics that are sparser in the word count department and straight to the point. also, not so sure about that climax, but hopefully it wasn't too bad *twiddles thumbs nervously* i think it could've been better, but it's not irredeemable.
> 
> aaaaaaaaaand cue a list of all the other little notes I made/behind-the-scenes details:  
> — cass was watching the addams family tv show. I was about to say it also could've been "twilight zone," but i'm going to give Damian credit that he would at least know that. (would most likely be a fan of it too)  
> — i wished i could give a piece of candy to anyone who noticed that the title was a reference to something before they even clicked on this fic. yes, it was a play off of "it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown" which i was watching the sunday before halloween and that planted the seed that would become this fic, because i thought the scene of sally being so smitten with linus and deciding to stay with him rather than go with the others was so cute.......and started projecting damian onto her and tim onto linus lol (i also had a platonic version of this idea planned where tim convinces damian into thinking the great pumpkin is real and shenanigans ensue. maybe i'll end up writing it for next year - and hopefully get that one done by halloween xP i COULD have waited a year and posted this fic but i'm not THAT stuck on posting it on halloween)  
> — in another universe this fic would have been inspired by me wanting to write something where damian cries in tim's arms ;) that wasn't something that inpsired me in this universe but it was certainly enjoyable. i'm glad it sprung up in my head during the writing process  
> — hopefully it wasn't to weird to have to tim's full name be used in this fic. i'm sure you all got used to it, but i think "timothy" is a pretty name and that damian would think the same, so since this is from his pov, he definitely would've been using that instead of "tim." plus, he already says "richard" with dick and then i just decided to have him refer to everyone by their full names (although it also means he'd be closer with the people in his life that he'd refer to them by their first names, even if it's only in his head). i made an exception with jon, because "jonathan" sounded way too formal (i'm sure damian would cut some slack with his friends). i also have no idea if he actually calls him "jonathan" in the comics or not, which brings me to the disclaimer that i'm someone who has not read any of the comics. i just think batfam is really neat and have read a lot of fics, so that's where i'm drawing my knowledge from. if i got anything wrong, that's why (and please me know! i'd be interested to hear stuff about canon).  
> — at first, the age difference between damian and tim was three years, so that damian was 16 and tim was 19, but i tweaked it up by one year (so damian is 16 and tim is 20) since i saw that their age difference is even bigger in canon so one year wasn't going to be that big of a deal. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> thanks so much for reading these notes if you did, but thank you even more for taking the time to read this fic! kudos and comments (but especially comments) are always appreciated. <3


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